A Series of Unfortunate Events 2

From Rome we went on to London.

London was double decker buses! Spending all day riding the Thames River on a shuttle boat before watching my mom get smaller on the dock as the boat that I was on pushed off. Buying tickets in advance for London Dungeon by suggestion of a guy friend, which took 3435 minutes to find and in the end turned out to be a SCARY MANSION with dead people and rides -_____- definitely not something my mom and I were going to do. Going through the most boring museum ever: the London Tower. Geez what a scam. Following the signs for the London Eye with a man’s words ringing through my head who said, “You’ll see it.” We turn and come across a gigantic ferris wheel. “Sulma, that’s not it, right?” asks my mom. I had no idea that the London Eye was a FERRIS WHEEL! How can the city’s biggest tourist attraction be a gigantic ferris wheel?! Shopping until my feet felt like they were becoming one with the asphalt. Having afternoon tea in the morning with English Breakfast Tea in ENGLAND and three teirs of mini finger sandwiches and scone delights. Seeing Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and finding out he was my mom’s favorite painter too.

London was definitely my fav. The people are all so lovely and we finally started to let go of our tight grasp on our purses. Without too many hitches we went on to Paris spending Christmas Day oblivious to what was happening in the skies of Detroit.

Two days after Christmas Day our 9 Day Disaster Drill also known as mother-daughter time was coming to an end as we drove to the Milan airport to finally go home.

Right when we were about to board the flight attendant made us wait while all the other passengers to London were allowed to pass. Passengers to America had to be re-searched. We got searched again in London for our layover but this time with the whole plane going to LAX the flight was delayed by over two hours due to having to subject every passenger to 100% body frisk and hand search of all carry-on luggage. “Due to the heightened security measure currently going on in America, all passengers will be subjected to a full body search. Please remove all hats, coats, scarves, shoes and any other article of clothing you have on to make this process go faster. Thank you.”

When we finally landed in LA, I couldn’t be surprised as we were the last ones standing at carousal #5 waiting for my luggage that didn’t make it.

Traveling is a bitch, but oh LA it sure feels good to be home.

A Series of Unfortunate Events 1

I cannot believe I’m back.

It’s surreal to be home again. This has been the longest time that I’ve spent away from California, or for that matter from LA, and it really taught me how much we have to appreciate here. After traveling the world (well, a few countries in Europe), I realized that it’s flipping cold everywhere but southern California. Coming out of LAX I had a sweater and I was hot. In Milan all the streets were iced; in London, I saw my first snowfall and in Paris the below freezing temperature sucked the life from my bones.

After finishing my final undergraduate semester with IES, my mom came to Milan to start our 9-day Mother Daughter Bonding Time.

It was a fing disaster. It could have possibly been the worst decision of my life. Spending nine days secluded with just my mom while attempting to travel through three different countries is really an impossible feat that we were constantly reminded of every step of the way.

The second my mom stepped onto Milan soil one of the world’s safest cities suddenly became Compton times a thousand. Literally everything from somebody pressing too close to her on the metro or a man staring at her weirdly was threatening. I obviously can’t take care of myself very well – if I could then I wouldn’t have gotten my wallet stolen. But I now had to look out for my mom and her stuff in addition to myself and mine, which is seriously a strenuous thing because that woman’s mind is like a kaleidoscope on speed. Her credit card wallet was stolen between her departure from LAX to her sitting at dinner in Milan. Two days into the trip she left her scarf at dinner. Four days into the trip, she lost her right glove. I seriously felt like I was losing my mind.

While we were walking through Rome, we could have had a bull’s eye drawn on our foreheads with a flashing neon arrow that read “STEAL FROM ME!” My mom attracted so much attention from the men with her petite stature and white skin that they kept peering into her face under the brim of her hat, asking things, yelling things that I had to teach her to stop responding for goodness sakes.

It was there in Rome when she told me about her “losing” her credit cards and at this moment I couldn’t take any more. It felt like the devil himself was grabbing my heart and wringing it dry, leaving it in a crumpled heap at the bottom of my stomach. Why were we left to the devil’s whims like fodder? Why was God allowing this to happen? What am I supposed to do – put my life inside my money belt? I couldn’t have felt more unprotected and vulnerable. If the devil is against us, what can we do? What power do I have? It felt like everybody around us were chess pieces that he picked up and moved around in whatever way he wanted. You, up, go take that women’s wallet, then turn around and leave. Now you, see them? Threaten their safety, cut open her purse, make perverse gestures, follow them on the metro.

The rest of the night was spent me bawling and my mom trying to counsel me, saying that I was allowing the devil to enter me by receiving all of his emotions and thoughts. It made me want to never go back to Europe ever again.

The thing with the emancipation of women is that though we are now equal politically, in the work force, and even in the household, the unchangeable truth is that we actually really aren’t equal at all. Put any average woman against any average man and it is a guarantee that the man will win. There is really not much the woman can do. It’s a sad reality. One I never felt the angst of until now. In Rome I had to come to terms with the fact that I may need a guy after all. That a woman alone is subjected to so many more threats that really can’t be overcome.

I have always been a pessimist. The glass is never half full. Whenever somebody pours me a glass of anything I always wonder why he doesn’t fill it up to the top.